I should have felt shaken after everything that happened in the council chamber. Any sane woman would have been. Lies laid bare. A former friend was dragged away in chains. Power shifting in real time, scraping skin and bone as it moved.
Instead, as the doors closed behind Selene and the noise settled into a low, uneasy murmur, I felt something unexpected settle inside me. It was relief.
Not joy or triumph in the childish sense but the deep, bone-level relief of someone who had carried a secret alone for too long and finally set it down in the open.
The council had not adjourned properly. There had been no closing rites, no formal blessing from the elders. Everything about the meeting felt fractured, unfinished. Conversations broke out in tense clusters, Alphas whispering to one another
